Pulling on the Lead

Walking your dog should be one of the most enjoyable things about owning your pet. Yet during my time as a behaviour trainer, I saw many people struggling and not enjoying their walks due to their dogs insistent pulling. This behaviour can lead to less walks, of a shorter duration and ultimately negative side effects such as weight gain (Townsend et al., 2022). Now there are many reasons why dogs pull but that might be a subject of a future blog.

I want you to think what your dogs pulling does to your body and more importantly to their bodies. A dog that pulls on the lead represents a risk to the owner, you can be pulled over and tension may build in the arm muscles, shoulders and back. When dogs pull on the lead, they alter how they move too, this puts unnecessary stress into their body and can cause tension and muscle tightness in the animal. Harnesses do not necessarily mitigate these risks. Although the dog has less concentrated stresses in the neck and less choking risk than with a collar (Shih et al., 2021) harnesses just change the distribution of these potentially significant loads (Pálya et al., 2022).

There are many leads, collars and harness designs on the market that claim to stop your dog from pulling. I am going to break it to you. They don’t. They simply change how loads are distributed and ultimately how your dog moves. There is no substitute for training your dog when it comes to teaching your dog that pulling is not something you want. There is also no “one size fits all” when it comes to harnesses. Many are ill fitting to the dog and can cause their own problems (Pálya et al., 2022), if you are set on using a harness, please take advice on how to measure and adjust accordingly.

There is still so much more research that needs to be done in this area but as an experienced behaviour trainer and a qualified physiotherapist, my advice is to train your dog not to pull. In addition, if you do take part in “pulling sports” with your dog such as mantrailing, canicross or weight pull (to name a few), be mindful of the affect this has on you dogs body and prevent the problems that can occur with repetitive pulling. Your local physiotherapist will be able to support you with keeping your sporting partner in competitive shape.

Pálya, Z., Rácz, K., Nagymáté, G., & Kiss, R. M. (2022). Development of a detailed canine gait analysis method for evaluating harnesses: A pilot study. PLOS ONE, 17(3), e0264299. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264299

Shih, H.-Y., Phillips, C. J. C., Mills, D. S., Yang, Y., Georgiou, F., & Paterson, M. B. A. (2021). Dog Pulling on the Leash: Effects of Restraint by a Neck Collar vs. a Chest Harness. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.735680

Townsend, L., Dixon, L., & Buckley, L. (2022). Lead Pulling as a Welfare Concern in Pet dogs: What Can Veterinary Professionals Learn from Current Research? Veterinary Record, 191(10). https://doi.org/10.1002/vetr.1627